


Once Burned

by kiscico



Series: Carter!verse [9]
Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Community: numb3rs100, Dwayne POV, Episode: s04e01 Trust Metric, Gen, implied Dwayne Carter/Colby Granger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-08 05:52:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14098668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiscico/pseuds/kiscico
Summary: Dwayne would rather die than go back to prison, and once there he realizes that no matter how many times he tries to say he's sorry, it'll never be enough. Set during and after the events ofTrust Metric.(Can stand alone from series).





	Once Burned

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for N100 April '10 Rewind prompts: Explosion, Inside, Fierce, and Burn

**Explosion**  
Dwayne lifted his arm, one shot, point-blank and Lancer was gone, finished. Then Dwayne felt an explosion of pain across his back; he was falling when he heard the retaliating fire. Then, a warm hand pressed against his neck, no doubt checking his fluttering and failing pulse. Out of the corner of his eye, and past the graying of his vision, Dwayne could see an FBI agent kneeling next to Colby. Voices were a blur of buzzing white noise. Dwayne cursed himself a failure and worse: his last sight was an agent starting compressions on an unconscious and too-still Colby. 

**Inside**  
Dwayne Carter's first conscious thought was that he would have rather died than gone back to prison. Yet here he was, inside again. Blinking open eyes past the blurriness of sleep and pain-killers, Dwayne took one look at the sterilized whiteness and uniformed cop outside his door and groaned. His back itched and burned, but his hands weren't cuffed to the railing. Not that he could go anywhere as he was. The cop was unhelpful, but informed him that his sentence was unchanged. Maybe the reason his sentence wasn't longer was because he had actually saved Colby. He hoped so. 

**Fierce**  
It had been two months since the Chinese freighter, Lancer, and needles sticking out of Colby's chest. Dwayne was back in prison, alone and angry, his sentence still the same. He had discovered that Colby was indeed alive and back at work at the FBI. But he hadn't come to see Dwayne. Dwayne didn't really expect him to, but that did nothing to diminish the fierce longing to see Colby, to make sure he was okay, that Dwayne wasn't in prison for no reason. Dwayne was appealing for another trade back to China when Colby finally came to see him. 

**Burn**  
“They said you had been shot. I thought...” Colby didn't need to finish the sentence. _I thought you had died saving me._ Dwayne looked at the burns on his palms, never healed quite right. Now he had been burned again. He knew that no matter how many times he saved Colby, Colby wouldn't forget that one betrayal, the one time Dwayne had asked too much of his friend. Dwayne didn't fault Colby his grudge. After all, Dwayne knew he deserved Colby's caution. Colby was just afraid that he would get burned again, like he had been in the past.


End file.
